THE EXTRA SESSION OF 1879.

WHAT IT TEACHES AND WHAT IT MEANS

•

SPEECH

\ .

ROSCOE CONKLING

K THE

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
APEIL 24, 1879.

"Corruption wins not more than honesty."

WASHINGTON,
1879

Eusi

p

SPEECH

OF

ROSCOE CONKLING

The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. K. No. 1) making appropria-
tions for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 18i0, and for
other purposes —

Mr. CONKLING said :

Mr. President : During the last fiscal year the amount of national
taxes paid into the Treasury -was $234,831,461.77. Of this sum one
hundred and thirty million and a fraction was collected under tariff
laws as duties on imported merchandise, and one hundred and four
million and a fraction as tax on American productions. Of this total
of $2135,000,000 in round numbers, twenty-seven States which adhered
to the Union during the recent war paid' $221, 204, 26S.SS. The residue
came from eleven States. I will read their names : Alabama, Ar-
kansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia. These eleven States paid $13,-
(527,192.89. Of this sum more than six million and a half came from
the tobacco of Virginia. Deducting the amount of the tobacco-tax
in Virginia, the eleven States enumerated paid $7,125,462.60 of the
revenues and supplies of the Republic.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Will the Senator from New York allow me
to ask him a question ?

Mr. CONKLING. If the Senator thinks that two of us are needed
to make a statement of figures I will.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Two no doubt can make it better.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from New York
yield to the Senator from Georgia ?

Mr. CONKLING. After the expressed opinion of the Senator from
Georgia that the statement needs his aid, 1 cannot decline.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I will not interrupt the Senator if it is
disagreeable to him, I assure him. I ask if iu the computation lie has
made of the amount paid he does not ascribe to the States that ad-
hered to the Union, to use his language, all

Mr. CONKLING. Having heard the Senator so far, I must ask him
to desist.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York declines
to yield further.

Mr. CONKLING. I have stated certain figures as they appear iu
the published official accounts : the Senator seems about to challenge
the process or system by which the aocounts are made up. I cannot
give way for this, and must beg him to allow in." to proceed withob-

servations which I fear to prolong lest they become too wearisome to

■flip ftcnjitc.

The laws' exacting these few millions from eleven States, and these
hundreds of millions from twenty-seven States, originated, as the
Constitution requires all bills for raising revenue to originate, in the
House of Representatives. They are not recent laws. They have
been approved and affirmed by succeeding Congresses. The last
House of Representatives and its predecessor approved them, and both
these Houses were ruled by a democratic Speaker, by democratic com-
mittees, and by a democratic majority. Both Senate and House are
democratic now, and we hear of no purpose to repeal or suspend ex-
isting revenue laws. They are to remain in full force. They will
continue to operate and to take tribute of the people. If the sum
thev exact this year and next year, shall be less than last year, it will
be only or chiefly because recent legislation favoring southern and
tobacco-growing regions has dismissed twelve or fourteen million ot
annual tax on tobacco. . . .

. This vast revenue is raised and to be raised for three uses. It is
supplied in time of severe depression and distress, to pay debt in-
flicted by rebellion ; to pay pensions to widows, orphans, and crip-
ples made by rebellion ; and to maintain the Government and enforce
the laws preserved at inestimable cost of life and treasure.

It can be devoted to its uses in only one mode. Once in the 1 reas-
ury, it must remain there useless until appropriated by act ot Con-
cress. The Constitution so ordains. To collect it, and then defeat
or prevent its object and use, would be recreant and abominable op-

PrThe0Constitution leaves no discretion to Congress whether needful
appropriations shall be made. Discretion to ascertain and determine
amounts needful, is committed to Congress, but the appropriation ot
whatever is needful after the amount has been ascertained is com-
manded positively and absolutely. When for example Con-
stitution declares that the President and the judges at stated periods
shall receive compensation fixed by law, the duty to make the appro-
priations is plain and peremptory; to refuse to make them is •dis-
obedience of the Constitution, and treasonable. So, when it is de-
clared that Congress shall have power to provide money to .p. > debts,
and for the common defense and the general welfare the plain mean-
ing is that Congress shall do these things, and a refusal to do them
is revolutionary, and subversive Of the Constitution A refustf less
flagrant would be impeachable in the case of every officer and depart-
ment of the Government within the reach ot impeachment. A .
the President to refuse to do any act enjoined on him by the Co nstil ra-
tion, he would be impeachable, and ought to be convicted and . 6 moved
from office as a convict, should the judges, one or some or all oi them,
refuse to perform any duty which the Constitution commits to the
iudioial branch, the refnsal would be plainly impeachable.
•' Congress is nol amenable to impeachment. Congressional major-
ities are triable at the bar of publ& opinion, and ... no other human
„„,,,„. oonld Congress be dissolved instantly here as ^ngland
could Senators and Representatives bedrrven mstanih t ro .
seats by popular disapproval, were they amenable PWJgftJgJ
where, there would be more of bravery, d not less ot g u t a
regard of Bwoni obligation. Legislators are bound ofii by 11 i
honor and their oaths; and the very impunity and '^'"d ' .h >
enjoy exalts and measures their obligations, and the onme ^>
of violating them. Because of the fixed tenure by which the .... ...

th^e ^^^;^^^^t^^ntio„, as it must occur to
say truisms like these wouSbtLedlessf St S7T * mig,ht

matched against Smtaafcwffi^ only partial success, had been
cherish their inheritance P g 9 their Postenty should

propriating n°one? "to K tie rSn"' T $"g tha,* P*"***" "P"
iu themselves improper re li £„??« r . ■£**• *Bd Pro™ions ™t

the same bill With MiSwWffJ T matter8> m*y be united in

ation we have been asked Z kShLT™*0™1? *Ud "*«*«««" iter-
hearing has ever so contended revolutionary T No one in my

into one bill, and in the same bill nll't ,1 g the appropriations

6

would make them all a law. The proceeding would bs outlandish,
but it would uot violate the Constitution.

A Senator might vote against such a huddle of incongruities,
although separately he would approve each one of them. If however
they passed both Houses in a bunch, and the Executive found no ob-
jection to any feature of the bill on its merits, and the only criticism
should be that it would have been better legislative practice to divide
it into separate enactments, it is not easy to see on what ground a
veto could stand.

The assault which has been made on the executive branch of the
Government, and on the Constitution itself, would not be less flagrant
if separate bills had been resorted to as the weapons of attack. Sup-
pose in a separate bill, the majority had, in advance of appropriations,
repealed the national-bank act and the resumption act, and had de-
clared that unless the Executive surrendered his convictions and
yielded up his approval of the repealing act, no appropriations should
l)e made ; would the separation of the bills have palliated or condoned
the revolutionary purpose 1 In the absence of an avowal that appro-
priations were to be finally withheld, or that appropriations were to
be made to hinge upon the approval or veto of something else, a resort
to separate bills might have cloaked and secreted for a time the real
meaning of the transaction. In that respect it would have been wise
and artful to resort to separate bills on this occasion ; and I speak I
think, in the hearing of at least one democratic Senator who did not
overlook in advance the suggestion now made. But when it is de-
clared, or intended, that unless another species of legislation is agreed
to, the money of the people, paid for that purpose, shall not be used
to maintain their Government and to enforce the laws — when it is de-
signed that the Government shall be thrown into confusion and shall
stop unless private charity or public succor comes to its relief, the
threat is revolutionary, and its execution is treasonable.

In the case before us, the design to make appropriations hinge and
depend upon the destruction of certain laws, is plain on the face of
the bills before us, — the bill now pending, and another one on our
tables. The same design was plain on the face of the bills sent as at
the last session. The very fact that the sections uncovering the bal-
lot-box to violence and fraud, are not, and never have been separately
presented, but are thrust into appropriation bills, discloses and proves
a belief, if not a knowledge, that in a separate bill the Executive
would not approve them. Moreover both Houses have rung with
the assertion that the Executive would not approve in a separate
measure the overthrow of existing safeguards of the ballot-box, and
that should he refuse to give his approval to appropriations ami an
overthrow 'if those safeguards linked together, no appropriations

should be made.

The plol and the purpose then, is by duress t<> eompel the Kxecu-
tive to give up his convictions, his duty, and his oath, a^ the price

to be paid a political party for allowing the Governmenl to live!

Whether the bills be united or divided is mere method and form.

The Bubstance in either form is Cue same, and the plot if persisted in
will bury its aiders and abettors in opprobrium, and will feat e a buoy
on the sea of time warning political mariners to keep aloof from a
treachero is channel in which a political party foundered and w< q1
down.

The size of the Army and its pay, have both been exactly fixed by
law — by law enacted by a democratic House, and approved i>y a bbc-
ond de touse. It 1 i voted til;:

defenses and the Indian and frontier service, require a certain num-
ber of soldiers ; and the appropriations needed for provision and pav
have been ascertained to a farthing. Nothing remains to be done
but to give formal sanction and warrant for the use of the money
from time to time. This was all true at the last session. But a dem-
ocratic House, or more justly speaking the democratic majority in the
House refused to give its sauction, refused to allow the people's money
to reach the use for which the people paid it, unless certain long-
standing laws were repealed. When the Senate voted against the
repeal, we were bluntly told that unless that vote was reversed un-
less the Senate and the Executive would accept the bills, repealing
clauses and all, the session should die, no appropriations should be
made, and the wheels of the Government should stop. The threat
was executed ; the session did die, and every branch of the Govern-
c^nexIT Wlth0llt the power to execute its duties after the 30th

We were further told that when the extra session, thus to be brought
about, should convene, the democrats would rule both Houses, that
the majority would again insist on its terms, and that then unless the
-Executive submitted to become an accomplice in the design to flin^
™u the barriers that block the way to the ballot-box against fraud*
anu force appropriations would again be refused, and again the ses-
sion should die leaving the Government paralyzed. The extra session
has convened; the democrats have indeed the power in both Houses
and thus far the war and the caucus have come up to the manifesto!
So far the exploit has been easy. The time of trial is to come ; the
St « «een,mad!? andi °t its ignominious failure, there can be no
doubt if the Executive shall plant itself on constitutional right and
duty, and stand firm. The actors in this scheme have managed them-
selves and their party into a predicament, and unless the President
lets them out they will and they must back out. [Laughter and
manifestations of applause in the galleries 1

S6 rKKrHS? °I,1FIC;^R' (Mn Wallace in the chair.) Order.

Mr CONKLING Should the Executive interpose the constitu-
tional shield against the political enormities of the proposed bills and
then should the majority carry out the threat to desert their posts by
adjournment without making the needed appropriations, I hope and

nee 1 II &7J3 ^ °^ ^ inStaDtly aml 0afied b»d °* «» *s

u^JS^J^^ a monstrona preten8ion and aljan*» a

+<Ji 6 A!rmy 1iil1.m>,w Pendi.ng> is n°t. >n its political features, the bill

tendered us at the last session a, feu- .lays ago ; it is not The same bill
then insisted on as the ultimatum of the majority. The bill as it
comes tons now, condemns its predecessors crude and objectionable
Jt was found to need alteration. It did need alteration badly, and
those who lately insisted on it as it was, insist on it now as it then was
not A grave proviso has been added to save the right of the Presi-
dent to aid a State gasping in the throes of rebellion or invasionand
calling for help. As the provision stood when fchrasl upon a8firai
and last at the recent session, it would have pnnished as a felon the
President of the United states, the General o?the An, v. a, , .' he
for attempting to obey the Constitution of the, United States and
two ancient acts of Congress, one of then, signed by George Wash-
ington. Shorn oi tins absurdity, the bill as it now stands, Should it
become a law, will be the first enactment of its kind that ever found
is way into the statutes of the United States. A ceotury with all
its activities am! party atrifea w= u ;ts neonate discords with

8

all its expedients for party advantage, with all its wisdom and its
folly, with all its patriotism and its treason, has never till now pro-
duced a congressional majority which deemed such a statute tit to be
enacted.

Let me state the meaning of the amendments proposed under guise
of enlarging liberty on election day — that day of days when order,
peace, and security for all, as well as liberty, should reign. The amend-
ments declare in plain legal effect that, no matter what the exigency
may be, no matter wbat violence or carnage may run riot and tram-
ple down right and life, no matter what mob brutality may become
master, if the day be election day, any officer or person, civil, mili-
tary, or naval, from the President down, who attempts to interfere to
prevent or quell violence by the aid of national soldiers, or armed
men not soldiers, shall be punished, and may be fined $5,000 and im-
prisoned for five years. This is tbe law we are required to set up.
Yes, not only to leave murderous ruffianism untouched, but to invite
it into action by assurances of safety in advance.

In the city of New York, all the thugs and shoulder-hitters and re-
peaters, all the carriers of slung-shot, dirks, and bludgeons, all the
fraternity of the bucket-shops, the rat-pits, the hells and the slums,
all the graduates of the nurseries of modern so-called democracy,
[laughter;] all those who employ and incite them, from King's Bridge
to the Battery, are to be told in advance that on the day when the
million people around them choose their members of the National
Legislature, no matter what God-daring or man-hurting enormities
they may commit, no matter what they do, nothing they can do will
meet with the slightest resistance from any national soldier or armed
man clothed with national authority.

Another bill, already on our tables, strikes down even police offi-
cers armed, or unarmed, of the United States.

In South Carolina, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, and in the other
States where colored citizens are counted to swell the representation
in Congress and then robbed of their ballots and dismissed from the
political sum — in all such States, every rifle club, and white league,
and murderous band, and every tissue ballot box stutter, night-rider,
and law-breaker is to be told that they may turn national elections
into a bloody farce, that they may choke the whole proceeding with
force and fraud and blood, and that the nation shall not confront
them with one armed man. State troops, whether under the name of
rifle .clubs or white leagues, or any other, armed with the muskets of
the United States, may constitute the mob, may incite the mob, but
the national arm is to be tied and palsied.

I npcat such an act of Congress has never yet existed. If there
ever was a time when such an act could safely and fitly stand upon
the statute-book, that time is not now, and is not likely to arrive iu
the near future. Until rebellion raised its iron hand, all parties and
all sections had been content to leave where the Constitution hit it
the power and duty of the President to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed. The Const it ut ion has in this regard three plain
commands :
The President "shall take care that the laws he faithfully executed.''
Again, "The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army
and Navy of the United States, ami of the militia of the several States,
when called into the actual service of the United States.'"

"The actual service of the United States" some man may say
means war merely, ser\ ice in time of war. Let me read again, " Con-
gress shall have power to provide for calling forth the militia." For
what I Fiist of all, " (o execute the laws of the Union."

9

Yes, Congress shall have power "to provide for calling forth the
militia to execute the laws of the Union." Speaking to lawyers, I ven-
ture to emphasize the word "execute." It is a term of art; it has a
long-defined meaning. The act of 179."), re-enacted since, emphasized
these constitutional provisions.

Here it is, section 5298 of the Revised Statutes.

Whenever, by reason of unlawful obstruction, combinations, or assemblages of
persons, or rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States,
it shall become impracticable, in the judgment of the President, to enforce, by the
ordinary course of judicial proceedings, the laws of the United States within any
State or Territory, it shall be lawful for the President to call forth tke militia of any
or all the States, and to employ such part* of the land and naval forces, of the United
States as he may deem necessary to enforce the faithful execution of the laws of tlie
United States, or to suppress such rebellion, in whatever State or Territory thereof
the laws of the United States may be forcibly opposed, or tlie execution thereof
forcibly obstructed.

That section, enacted iu substance during the administration of
Washington, drawn and voted for by the men who framed the Con-
stitution, only supplemented the provisions I have read. It has stood
for eighty-four years unchallenged.

These constitutional provisions, enforced by the act to whicb the
Senate has listened, were, and to-day are, the only authority under
which the soldiers of the nation can go on electiou day or any other
day to the polls or elsewhere within the jurisdictionof a State to
quell violence and enforce law. If under these provisions armed men
cannot be employed to subdue violence at the polls on the day of a
national election, they cannot be employed at all; for there is, as I
shall argue and as I think I shall demonstrate, no other authority for
it ; certainly none in the act which we are invited to strike down. If
there was during eighty years of acquiescence too much latitude given
to the President or the Army by the Constitution aud by the act of
1795, that latitude was curtailed on the 18th of June, 1878. On that
recent date, this provision became a law:

Sec. 15. From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ
any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus. or otherwise, for
the purpose of executing the laws, except insuch cases and under », /, eieeu instances
as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or
by act of Congress; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay an v
of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops iu violation of this sec-
tion, and any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor, anil on conviction thereof shall be punished by tine not
exceeding §10,000, or imprisonment not exceeding two years, or by both such tine
and imprisonment.

Mark the language, a penal statute visiting with penalty the Presi-
dent and everybody else who attempts to employ troops in any case
unless the Constitution or an act of Congress "expressly," not' alone
by implication, not alone by the spirit, which makes alive, but by
the very letter which sometimes kills, authorizes such employment.
So thoroughly is the Constitution hedged about already. I have said
aud I repeat that the act of 18ii.">, against which this repeal is leveled,
contains no authority, none whatever, uuder which any one soldier or
any one armed man may go for the purpose of keeping the peace, or for
any other purpose, to the polls on a national election day. Let me
read the section aimed at by the amendment, and the section which
immediately follows it, both of which were enacted as part of the
statute of 1865 :

Sec 2002. No military or naval officer, or other person engaged in the civil, mili-
tary, or naval service of the United States, shall order, bring, keep, or have nnder
his authority or control, any troops or armed men at tin- plate whore any general
or special election is held in any State, unless it bo necessary U> repel the anm-d
enemies of the United States, or to keep the peace at the p ills.

10

Mark the following section

Sec. 2003. No- officer of the Army or Xavy of the United States shall prescribe
or fix, or attempt to prescribe or fix, by proclamation, order, or otherwise, the quali-
fications of voters in any State, or in any manner interfere with the freedom of any
election in any State, or with the exercise of the free right of suffrage in any State.
(See sections 5530-5532.)

Does any lawyer listen to those two sections and know that they
stood together in the act of 1865, and yet doubt that the act was a
mere penal and restraining act ? It conferred no power. It was de-
signed for no such thing. It diminished, curtailed, restrained the
olden power which from time immemorial had resided in the persons
the section describes.

Mr. President, let me go back a moment, for I think, after read-
ing some remarks which fell from the distinguished Senator from
Illinois now before me [Mr. Davis,] it is somewhat important that the
Senate should know that I am right or know that I am wrong in this
particular. I have said that the act of 1865 gives no authority to troops
or armed men to visit the polls at which an election is being held.
I have said that the power of the President resides in the act of 1795
and in the Constitution, and I add that until 1864 these constitutional
provisions had always been deemed not only a suitable grant of power,
but a sufficiently guarded grant.

National jurisdiction, — by that I mean the right of national au-
thority to interpose — depends sometimes upon the locus as lawyers say,
thereby meaning the place, and sometimes on the occasion without
reference to place.

In a fort, an arsenal, a dock-yard, and in every other place under
the sole jurisdiction of the United States, the national authority may
always go to preserve the peace and to reign and dwell there. In the
States, and everywhere in every State, on every rood of our soil, the
national authority may always go, and lawfully go, when any act is
to be done or law enforced in virtue of the Constitution of the United
States.

The law protecting and regulating national elections is a law in
virtue of the Constitution of the United States. The execution of
that law is an act under and in virtue of that Constitution. It fol-
lows that it is one of the laws which the President is empowered and
commanded to take care to have faithfully executed. It is one of
" the laws of the Union " which he may command the mi lit ia as well
as the national forces to execute. It is one of the laws in reaped of
which, when need be, he may exert all the power, civil and military,
which he may exert, to execute any law whatever.

Are we to be told that the act protecting elections is unconstitu-
tional, and therefore not valid and not "a law of the Union!" It
is too late to say that. The democratic Bouse, and what is more

absolute, the democratic caucus, have abandoned the constitutional
argument. They have decided that the election law is a valid
^institutional law, and the judgment stands recorded in the legis-
lative, executive and judicial bill lying on our tables as pending in
the House. They recognize* the election act ; they deal with it : they
assume that it exists. They cripple it, it is true: they cunningly

emasculate it, they provide for its safe and easy violation and eva-
sion. They vu change it as t<> make a Bmootb and tempi ing walk for
every ballot-box-st u Her and ruffian who would maraud upon the bal-
lot-box, but they recognize it all the time, and deal with it as a valid

constitutional enactment.
I said, and I repeat, that the authority to enforce this law resides

11

in the Constitution and in the act of 1795. I said, and I repeat, that
until 1804 no curb, no limitation, had ever been placed by Congress
upon the right and duty to execute law and preserve peace on elec-
tion day or any other day.

In l£ol-'G2 General McClellan, General Dix, General Schenck, and
others, military commanders, issued orders in which they not only
excluded disloyal voters from the polls, but undertook in some sort to
prescribe the qualification of electors. General McClellan was a demo-
crat and must be supposed to have been inspired in all the meanings
and limitations of the Constitution. I never knew a democrat dur-
ing the war, even if he could not read the Constitution by its title,
who was not profoundly instructed and vehemently certain of all pro-
hibitions of that famous instrument. General McClellan issued an
order not only regulating elections, but suspending the privilege of
the writ of habeas corpus, in order that at elections military authority
might have full sway.

Here it is:

Headquarters Army of the Potomac

Washington, October 29, 1861.

GENERAL: There is an apprehension among Union citizens in many parts of
Maryland of an attempt at interference with their rights of suffrage by disunion
citizens on the occasion of the election to take place on the (ith of November next.

In order to prevent this, the major-general commanding —

That was General McClellan —

directs that you send detachments of a sufficient number of men to the different
points in your vicinity where the elections are t.t lie held to protect the Union
voters, and to see that no disunionists are allowed to intimidate them, or in any
■way to interfere with their rights.

He also desires you to arrest and hold in confinement till after the election all
disunionists who are known to have returned from Virginia recently and who show
themselves at the polls, and to guard effectually against any invasion of the peace
and order of the election.

Por the purpose of carrying out these instructions you are authorized to suspend
the habeas corpus. General stone has received similar Instructions to these. Eou
will please confer with him as to the particular points that each shall take the
control of.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

K. B. MARCT,

Chief of Staff.
Major-General N. P. Banks,

Commanding Division, iluddg JTranch, Maryland.

The democratic party did not learn for some time afterward how
monstrous it is to confront ruffians with armed force. Indeed, the
tender constitutional susceptibilities of that great organization were
not then keenly alive to the wrong of trampling under foot that great
prerogative writ, and boast of Anglo-Saxon freedom and jurispru-
dence, the habeas corpus.

Three years later the democrats met in national convention. The
convention resolved that the war for the Union was a failure, a fail-
arc just at the time when it was about to triumph utterly, as it would
have done long before but for incitement and encouragement given
by northern democrats to the rebellion. EJaving recorded this sage,
patriotic, ami statesman-like judgment, the convention proceeded to
nominate for President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief
of the Army and Navy the very man who had sent soldiers to act as
overseers of elections, who had trampled down by military force the
privilege of the habeas corpus, and this, do not forget, in Maryland, —
Maryland, a State in the Union, not even a seceded State.

Delaware too, was protected at her elections by military force, under
military orders, and the governor of that State thanked the national
authorities for that protection, approved it and aided it.

12

Bat these orders went very far. They prescribed with military
rigor the qualification of voters, and rough proceedings no doubt
ensued. The sword is not a mathematical instrument, it is not as
exact as the guillotine, not as exact as the headsman's axe, nor even
as the dagger, the bullet, or the halter of the assassin.

These orders prompted the act of 16(55, not to confer power, I can-
not repeat too often, but to restrain and curtail it.

The bill was introduced by Mr. Powell of Kentucky, that Senator
who when the enrollment act came from the House is said to have
remarked, " Go on with your draft ; I feel no interest in it ; Ken-
tucky's quota is full on both sides." The bill was referred to the
Military Committee of the Senate. On the 12th of February, 1864,
the Military Committee reported against it, and for the time being
that was the end of it.

A year latei-, having meantime been taken up and amended, amended
as it now stands, it was passed. Every democratic Senator who voted
voted for it as it stands now. Every democrat in the House who
voted voted for the act as it stands now. Nay more ; after it had
been amended as it now is, after the words " except when necessary
to keep the peace at the polls," had been established in it, Mr. Powell,
a democrat from Kentucky, and other democratic members of the
Senate again and again, as the Senator from Iowa knows, for ho has
just traversed the debate, urged the Senate, importuned the Senate
to take up this now obnoxious act, amended as it now stands, and put
it on its passage. Was it not so ?

Mr. ALLISON. Yes, sir.

Mr. CONKLING. Mr. President, the act of 1865 was not, as the
honorable Senator from Illinois stated, a war measure, to operate only
in time of war. No, sir; it was passed in 1865, passed when Grant
was tightening the coils around Richmond, passed when Sherman,
everywhere victorious in the South, had led his conquering legions
from the mountains to the sea. It was passed when the rebellion was
in the very article of death. In less than sixty days the confederacy
as a military fact had become a vanished dream. No, sir; it was
passed at the end of a great war, and passed to put a bridle on permis-
sion, and power which had gone unchecked for three-quarters of a
century during which statesmen had lived — for there were brave men
before Agamemnon. It was meant to be, it was said to be, and it is,
a mere check. It punishes ordering troops to approach (he polls, except
that when the order is for a lawful purpose it is not included.

Does that, I ask the honorable Senator from Illinois, confer au-
thority upon anybody ? Take an analogous case. Here is a st atute, —
the books of both hemispheres bristle with them, — denouncing homi-
cide. What do they declare ? The killing of a human being with
prepense aforethought, shall be murder ; but they except, or the court
interpolates into them as an exception, the act of a sheriff in executing
a Criminal. That act shall not be punished. Did any lawyer ever hear
that under a statute of that sort a sheriff might proceed to hang a
man ? Did anybody ever hear that if a statute punished an act and
said "except it be lawfully done," that statute furnished the author-
ity for doing it, or had any possible effect save only to say that, when
Lawfully done, when authority otherwise existed to do it, it should
not be held punishable f A sheriff must have a death-warrant of a
competent tribunal, and an express enabling statute when he pro-
ceeds to deprive a human being of life; without that he would be a
murcerer just an miieh under a statute excepting lawful executions
from puniuiment as homicides, as without such a statute. So when

13

a statute declares that troops shall he punished if they act except in
a given condition of things, they must still he authorized, they must
have authority on which to act as much as the sheriff must have
authority on which to execute.

Again, this act forbids civil officers to have soldiers or armed meu
not soldiers at the polls, except it he necessary to quell violence. The
amendment proposes to punish civil officers for trying to subdue
rioters or mobs by soldiers or by calling upon men not soldiers if they
are armed in any way ; and this, we are told, is to subordinate the
military to the civil authority !

Again, the act as it stands forhids, except in the case for which
there may he authority, the presence of troops at the " place " at
which au election is to be held. What does " place " mean ? I ask
emphatically what does •' place " mean ? The honorable Senator from
Delaware cited the other day at great length an instance in which
troops had heen present in the city of New York within the meaning
of this act, when they were conspicuously absent from every polling
place ; not allowed to go, even one at a time, to any polling place for
any purpose whatever. Under this interpretation " place " must be
construed to mean a whole city or a township, and under the proposed
amendment so construed, on a day when election is held every soldier
must he banished from the whole Island of Manhattan, and never
allowed to return during the day even though the entire city should
he wrapped in flames or sacked by mobs.

Again, the act of 1>'65 forbids the presence of soldiers save only
when necessary to preserve the peace. My honorable friend from
Connecticut smiles

Mr. EATON. I do. Necessity is the plea of tyrants.

Mr. CONKLING. That is the lawyer's smile. My honorable friend
knows as well as I know — we do not differ — that a statute providing
that a thing may he ddhe when necessary, commits to the discretion
of somebody authority to judge of that necessity. No doubt of it.
No doubt the discretion may he abused. All human discretion may
be abused ; almost if not all human discretion has been abused since
the morning of time. The governor of every State may abuse similar
discretion every day in the year ; so may every sheriff, mayor, and con-
stable. The President may mistake or abuse the discretion which
calls for his judgment ; he may do it under other statutes and provis-
ions every other day in the three hundred and sixty -five. What is
there, in God's name what is there in a Republic operating by univer-
sal suffrage and governed by majorities, which should pick out elec-
tion day and hand that day over a prey to unchallenged ruffianism,
brutality, and disorder?

Connected with the amendment we are now considering and a part
of it, is the act for protecting and.'regulating national elections. That
act applies to cities of twenty thousand or more inhabitants. It pro-
vides that two persons may he appointed by the court, not to act as
overseers, hut as supervisors of registration, voting and counting at
national elections. One is to be a democrat, one is to be a republi-
can. That is to prevent either side having advantage over the other.
In rural regions with sparse populations, no provision is made. There,
as a rule, all voters are known to each other; there, the danger of
mobs and tumults is comparatively slight. In the large cities the
case is different. There, these two supervisors are to see fair play:
that is the whole of it. They have no powers, nor have the deputy
marshals any power, not from time immemorial and from necessity
reposed in all the States, as far as I know, in the inspectors of elec-

14

tion. I read the provision as it stands in my own State, and I ask
the Senate to mark what sort of power it confers on every inspector
of election :

Jf any person shall willfully disobey any lawful commands of the board of in-
spectors of any election, or shall willfully and without lawful authority, obstruct,
hinder, or delay any elector on his way to any poll where an election shall be held,
or while he is exercising or attempting to exercise the right of voting, or shall ajd
or assist in such obstruction or delay, he shall, on conviction.be adjudged guilty
of a misdemeanor, and be fined in a sum not exceeding $250, and may be impris-
oned, in the discretion of the court, for not more than six months.

All these inspectors under this act are such " potentates and
powers" that any man who dares to disobey their commands is to be
punished ; and yet the sensibilities of the gifted and ardent Senator
from Indiana [Mr. Yoorhees] palpitated with indignant emotion
when he thought of youth and age meeting at the polls and voting,
with two persons, one democrat and one republican looking right at
them when they did it; looking on to see that the receiver of ballots
did not destroy or change them but put them in the bos, and after-
ward to see that the ballots were honestly counted after youth and
age had gone home to supper. I listened to a recital of that ordeal,
and I made up my mind that on such an occasion youth and age
after the day's fitful struggle might sleep well.

The election law came in to correct abuses which reached their
climax in 18C8 in the city of New York. In that year in the State of
New York the republican candidate for governor was elected ; the
democratic candidate was counted iu. Members of the Legislature
were fraudulently seated. The election was a barbarous burlesque.
Mauy thousand forged naturalization papers were issued; some of
them were white and some were coffee- colored. The same witnesses
purported to attest hundreds and thousands of naturalizatiou affida-
vits, and the stupendous fraud of the whole thing was and is an open
secret1. Some of these naturalization papers Were sent to other States.
So plenty were they, that some of them were sent to Germany, and
Germans who had never left their countcy claimed exemption from
the German draft for soldiers in the Franco-Prussian war, because
they were naturalized American citizens ! [Laughter.]

The holders of these papers voted by thousands, and I have heard
it said in this debate that Judge Blatchford has decided that these
papers are legal. Never. I see the Senator from West Yirgiuia [Mr.
Hereford] nod. He does not nod very forcibly, but he nods enough
to induce me to stop and read from the judgment of Judge Blatchford.
Judge Blatchford passed upon a case made — lawyers will understand
what that is — presenting a pure question of law. What was the
question ? Whether certain papers on deposit or on file iu court in
and of themselves, assuming their verity, assuming that they wore
genuine, constituted a record in the eye of the law. There was no
question tried or decided whether they were forged or not; no ques-
tion whether they were fraudulent or not; no question whether they
had been signed, as some of them had been, with the name of officers
appearing on their face who never were elected until long alter the
paper was issued ; but on the naked question presented to him, Judge
Blatchford spoke, lie refers to another case m which the same ques-
tion had been presented, and Bays.:

The sole ground iif surli application was tli.it the v:\lidii \ of the admission of the
party to citizenship \\a.^ disputed, oa the allegation taut were was no legal record
oJ the judgment admitting him to citizenship,—

Why .' I ask the Senate to mark —
for the reason thai the olerli of the court did not write out an entry In the minute-

15

book of the court reciting the proceedings and showing tho adjudication made.
This is the same point now urged here.

There is the point of the decision and the whole of it as I under-
stand.

I say thousands of men voted upon fraudulent naturalization pa-
pers. But all this was tame and paltry compared with other enormi-
ties. The city of New York was redistricted from time to time —
sometimes so districted as to bisect blocks, and denizens of the same
building could vote in different election precincts. In some cases the
democratic majority was larger than the whole number of men, wo-
men, children, horses, cats, and dogs in the district, [laughter,] and I
speak not in rhetorical figures but in Arabic figures.

Repeating, ballot-box stuffing, ruffianism, and false counting decided
everything. Tweed made the election officers, and the election offi-
cers were corrupt. In 1868, thirty thousand votes were falsely added
to the democratic majority in the cities of New York and Brooklyn
alone. Taxes and elections were the mere spoil and booty of a cur-
rupt junta in Tammany Hall. Assessments, exactions, and exemp-
tions were made the bribes and the penalties of political submission.
Usurpation and fraud inaugurated a carnival of corrupt disorder : and
obscene birds without number swooped down to the harvest and
gorged themselves on every side in plunder and spoliation. Wrongs
and usurpations springing from the pollution and desecration of the
ballot-box stalked high-headed in the public way. The courts and
the machinery of justice were impotent in the presence of culprits
too great to be punished.

The act of 1870 came in to throttle such abuses. It was not born
without throes and pangs. It passed the Senate after a day and a
night which rang with democratic maledictions and foul aspersions.

In the autumn of that year an election was held for the choice of
Representatives in Congress. I see more than one friend near me
who for himself and for others has reason even unto this day to re-
member that election and the apprehension which preceded it. It
Avas the first time the law of 1870 had been put in force. Resistance
was openly counseled. Democratic newspapers in New York ad-
vised that the officers of the law be pitched' into the river. Disorder
iva» afoot. Mm. not wanting in bravery, and not republicans, dreaded
the day. Bloodshed, arson, riot were feared. Ghastly spectacles
were still fresh in memory. The draft riots had spread terror which
had never died, and Btrong men shuddered when tiny remembered
the bloody assizes of the democratic party. They had seen men and
women, blind with party hate, dizzy and drunk with parts- madness,
stab and burn and revel in murder and iu mutilating the dead. They
had seen an asylum for colored orphans made a funeral pile, and its
smoke sent up from their Christian and imperial city to tell in heaven
of the inhuman bigotry, the horrible barbarity u! man. Remem-
bering such Bickenmg scenes, and dreading their repetition, they
asked the President to protect them — to protect them with the beak
and claw of national power. Instantly the unkenneled packs of
party barked in vengeful chorus. Imprecations, maledictions, and
threats were hurled at (■rant: but with that splendid courage which
never blanched in battle, which never quaked before olamor — with
that matchless self-poise which did not desert him even when a con-
tinent beyond the sea rose and uncovered before him, [applause in

the galleries,] be responded in the orders which it has pleased the

honorable Senator from Delaware to read. The election thas pro-
tected was the fairest, the freest, the wosl secure, a >n had

16

seen. When, two years afterward, New York came to crown Grant
with her vote, his action in protecting her chief city on the Ides of
November, 1870, was not forgotten. When next New York has occa-
sion to record her judgment of the services of Grant, his action in
1870 touching peace in the city of New York will not he hidden away
by those who espouse him wisely. [Applause in the galleries.]

Now, the election law is to be emasculated ; no national soldier
must confront rioters or mobs; no armed man by national authority,
though not a soldier, must stay the tide of brutality or force; no
deputy marshal must be within call ; no supervisor must have power
to arrest any man who in his sight commits the most flagrant breach
of the peace. But the democrats tell us " we have not abolished the
supervisors ; we have left them." Yes, the legislative bill leaves
the supervisors, two stool-pigeons with their wings clipped, [laugh-
ter,] two licensed witnesses to stand about idle, and look — yes, "a>
cat may look at a king" — but they must not touch bullies or law-
breakers, not if they do murders right before their eyes.

If a civil officer should, under the pending amendment, attempt to
quell a riot by calling on the bystanders, if they have arms, he is pun-
ishable for that. If a marshal, the marshal of the district in which the
election occurs, the marshal nominated to the Senate and conflrmed
by the Senate — I do not mean a deputy marshal — should see an affray
or a riot at the polls on election day and call upon the bystanders to
quell it, if this bill becomes a law, and one of those bystanders has a
revolver in his pocket, or another one takes a stick or a cudgel in his
hand, the marshal may be fined $5,000 and punished by five years'
imprisonment.

Such are the devices to belittle national authority and national
law, to turn the idea of the sovereignty of the nation into a laughing-
stock and a by-word.

Under what pretexts, is this uprooting and overturning to be ? Any
officer who transgresses the law, be he civil or military, may be pun-
ished in the courts of the State or in the courts of the nation under
existing law. Is the election act unconstitutional ? The courts for
ten years have been open to that question. The law has been pounded
with all the hammers of the lawyers, but it has stood the test- ; no
court has pronounced it unconstitutional, although many men have
been prosecuted and convicted under it. Judge Woodruff and Judge
Blatchford have vindicated its constitutionality. But, as I said be-
fore, the constitutional argument has been abandoned. The supreme
political court, practically now above Congresses or even constitu-
tions, the democratic caucus, has decided that the law is constitutional.
The record of the judgment is in the legislative bill.

We are told it costs money to enforce the law. Yes, it costs money
to enforce all laws; it costs money to prosecute smugglers, counter-
feiters, murderers, mail robbers and others. We have been informed
that it has cost $200,000 to execute the election act. It cost more
than $5,000,000,000 in money alone, to preserve our institutions and
our laws, in one war, and the nation which bled and the nation which
paid is not likely to give up its institutions and the birthright of its
citizens for $200,000. [Applause in the galleries.]

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. COCKRBIX in the chair.) The
Senator will suspend a moment. The Chair will announce to the
gallflies that there shall he no more applause; if so, the galleries will
he cleared immediately.

Mr. CONKLING. Mr. President, that interruption reminds me,
the present occupant of the chair having been deeply interested in

17

the bill, that the appropriations made and squandered for local and
unlawful improvements in the last river and harbor bill, alone, would
pay for executing the election law as long as grass grows or water
runs. The interest on the money wrongfully squandered in that one
bill, would execute it twice over perpetually. The cost of this need-
less extra session, brought about as a partisan contrivance, would exe-
cute the election law for a great while. A better way to save the cost,
than to repeal the law, is to obey it. Let White Leagues and rifle
clubs disband ; let your night-riders dismount ; let your tissue bal-
lot box stuffers desist ; let repeaters, false-counters, and ruffians no
longer be employed to carry elections, and then the cost of executing
the law will disappear from the public ledger.

Again, we are told that forty-five million people are in danger from
an army nominally of twenty-five thousand men scattered over a con-
tinent, most of them beyond the frontiers of civilized abode. Military
power has become an affrighting specter. Soldiers at the polls, are
displeasing to a political party. What party ? That party whose Ad-
ministration ordered soldiers, who obeyed, to shoot down and kill
unoffending citizens here in the streets of Washington on election
day; that party which has arrested and dispersed Legislatures at the
point of the bayonet; that party which has employed troops to carry
elections to decide that a State should be slave and should not be
free ; that party which has corraled courts of justice with national
bayonets, and hunted panting fugitive slaves, in peaceful communi-
ties, with artillery and dragoons ; that party which would have to-day
no majority in either House of Congress except for elections dom-
inated and decided by violence and fraud ; that party under whose
sway, in several States, not only the right to vote, but the right to be,
is now trampled under foot.

Such is the source of an insulting summons to the Executive to be-
come particeps criminis in prostrating wholesome laws, and this is the
condition on which the money of the people, paid by the people, shall
be permitted to be used for the purposes for which the people paid it.

Has the present national Administration been officiously robust in
checking the encroachments and turbulence of democrats, either by
the use of troops or otherwise ? I ask this question hecause the next
election is to occur during the term of the present Administration.
What is the need of revolutionary measures now ? What is all this up-
roar and commotion, this daring venture of partisan experiment, for?
Why not make your issue against these laws, and carry your issue to
the people ? If you can elect a President and a Congress of your
thinking, you will have it all your own way.

Why now should there be an attempt to block the wheels of gov-
ernment on the eve of an election at which this whole question is
triable before the principals and masters of us all! The answer is
inevitable. But one truthful explanation can be made of this daring
enterprise. It is a political, a partisan manoeuvre. It is a strike
for party advantage. With a fair election and an honest count, the
democratic party cannot carry the country. These laws, if executed,
insure some approach to a fair election. Therefore they stand in the
way, and therefore they are to be broken down.

i' reflect upon no man's motives, but I believe that the sentiment
which finds expression in the transaction now proceeding in the two
Houses of Congress, has its origin in the idea I have stated. I be-
lieve that the managers and charioteers of the democratic party
think that with a fair election and a fair count they cannot carry
the State of New York. They know that with free course, such ;us
2 CON

18

existed in 1868, to the ballot-box and count, no matter what majority
may be given in that State -where the green grass grows, the great
cities will overbalance and swamp it. They know that with the
ability to give eighty, ninety, one hundred thousand majority in the
county of New York and the county of Kings, half of it fraudu-
lently added, it is idle for the three million people living above the
Highlands of the Hudson, to vote.

This is a struggle for power. It is a fight for empire. It is a con-
trivance to clutch the National Government. That we believe ; that
I believe.

The nation has tasted, and drank to the dregs, the sway of the dem-
ocratic party, organized and dominated by the same influences which
dominate it again and still. You want to restore that dominion. We
mean to resist you at every step and by every lawful means that op-
portunity places in our hands. We believe that it is good for the
country, good for every man North and South who loves the country
now, that the Government should remain in the hands of those who
were never against it. We believe that it is not wise or safe to give
over our nationality to the dominion of the forces which formerly
and now again rule the democratic party. We do not mean to connive
at further conquests, and we tell you that if you gain further political
power, you must gain it by fair means, and not by foul. We believe
that these laws are wholesome. We believe that they are necessary
barriers against wrongs, necessary defenses for rights ; and so believ-
ing, we will keep and defend them even to the uttermost of lawful
honest effort.

The other day, it was Tuesday I think, it pleased the honorable
Senator from Illinois [Mr. Davis] to deliver to the Senate an address,
I had rather said an opinion, able and carefully prepared. That hon-
orable Senator knows well the regard not only, but the sincere re-
spect in which I hold him, and he will not misunderstand the free-
dom with which I shall refer to some of his utterances. Whatever
else his sayings fail to prove, they did I think, prove their author,
after Mrs. Winslow, the most copious and inexhaustible fountain of
soothing sirup. The honorable Senator seemed like one slumbering
in a storm and dreaming of a calm. He said there was no uproar
anywhere — one would infer you could hear a pin drop, — from center
to circumference. Rights, he said, are secure. I have his language
here.' If I do not seem to give the substance aright I will stop and
read it. Rights secure North and South ; peace and tranquillity every-
where. The law obeyed and no need of special provisions or anxiety.
It was in this strain that the Senator discoursed.

Are rights secure, when fresh-done barbarities show that local gov-
ernment in one portion of our land is no better than despotism tem-
pered by assassination ! Rights secure, when such things can be, as
Stand proved and recorded by committees of the Senate ! Rights se-
cure, when the old and the young fly in terror from their homes, and
from the graves of their murdered dead! Rights secure, when thou-
sands brave cold, hunger, death, seeking among strangers in a far
country a humanity which will remember that —
"Before mini liKidi- them citizens,
<iiv;it n;tt in u made tlfem men ! ''

Read the memorial signed by Judge Dillon, by the democratic
mayor of Saint Louis, l>y Mr. Henderson once a member of the Sen-
ate, mid by other men known to the nation, detailing what has been
done in recent weeks on the Southern Mississippi. Read the at'lida-
\it> accompanying this memorial. Has any one a copy of the memo-

19

rial here? I have seen the memorial. I have seen the signatures.
J, b°P® the. hon<>rable Senator from Illinois will read it. and read
the affidavits which accompany it. When he does, he will read one
ot the most sickening recitals of modern times. He will look upon
one of the bloodiest and blackest pictures in the book of recent years.
Yet the Senator says, all is quiet. " There is not such faith, no not in
Israel." Verily " order reigns in Warsaw."

SoUtudmem fammt, pacem appellant.

Mr. President, the republican party everywhere wants peace and
prosperity— peace and prosperity in the South, as much and as sin-
cerely as elsewhere. Disguising the truth, will not bring peace and
prosperity. Soft phrases will not bring peace. " Fair words butter
no parsnips." We hear a great deal of loose tlabby talk about " fan-
ning dying embers," " rekindling smoldering fires," and so on. When -
ever the plain truth is spoken, these unctuous monitions, with a Peter
Parley benevolence, fall copiously upon us. This lullaby and hush
has been in my belief a mistake from the beginning. It has misled
the South and misled the North. In Andrew Johnson's time a con-
vention was worked up at Philadelphia, and men were brought from
the North and South, for ecstasy and gush. A man from Massachu-
setts and a man from South Carolina locked arms and walked into
the convention arm in arm, and sensation and credulity palpitated
and clapped their hands, and thought an universal solvent had been
found. Serenades were held at which "Dixie" was played. Later
on, anniversaries of battles fought in the war of Independence, were
made occasions by men from the North and men from the South for
emotional, dramatic, hugging ceremonies. General Sherman I remem-
ber, attended one of them, and I remember also, that with the blunt-
ness of a soldier, and the wisdom and hard sense of a statesman he
plainly cautioned all concerned not to be carried away, and not to be
fooled. But many have been fooled, and being fooled, have helped
to swell the democratic majorities which now display themselves
before the public eye.

Of all such effusive demonstrations I have this to sav : honest
serious convictions are not ecstatic or emotional. Grave affairs and
lasting purposes do not express or vent themselves in honeyed phrase
or sickly sentimentality, rhapsody, or profuse professions.

1 Ins is as true of political as of religious duties. The Divine Mas-
ter tells us, " Not every one thatsaith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of inv Father
which is in Heaven."

Facts are stubborn things, but the better way to deal with them is
to look them squarely in the face.

The republican party and the northern people preach no crusade
against the South. 1 will say nothing of the past beyond a single
tact. When the war was over, no man who fought against his flafl
was punished even by imprisonment, No estate was confiscated!
Lvery man was left free to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap-
piness. After the Southern States were restored to their relations in
the Union no man was ever disfranchised bv national authority— not
one. If this statement is denied I invite any Senator to correct me.
I repeat it. After the southern state governments wen- rebnilded
and the States were restored to their relations in the Union, by na-
tional authority not one man for one moment was ever denied the
right to vote, or hindered in the right. From the time that Missis
srppi was restored, there never has been an hour when Jefferson i »i\ is
might not vote as freely as the honorable Senator in : i HI,.

20

nois. The North, burdened with taxes, draped in mourning, dotted
over with new -made graves tenanted by her bravest and her best,
sought to inflict no penalty upon those who had stricken her with the
greatest, and, as she believed, the guiltiest rebellion that ever crim-
soned the annals of the human race.

As an example of generosity and magnanimity, the conduct of the
nation in victory was the grandest the world has ever seen. The
same spirit prevails now. Yet our ears are larumed with the charge
that the republicans of the North seek to revive and intensify the
wounds and pangs and passions of the war, and that the southern
democrats seek to bury them in oblivion of kind forgetfulness.

We cau test the truth of these assertions right before our eyes.
Let us test them. Twenty-seven States adhered to the Union in the
dark hour. Those Stated send to Congress two hundred aud sixty-
nine Senators and Eepresentatives. Of these two hundred and sixty-
nine Senators and Eepresentatives, fifty-four, and only fifty-four,
were soldiers in the armies of the Union. The eleven States which
were disloyal send ninety-three Senators and Eepresentatives to Con-
gress. Of these, eighty-five were soldiers in the armies of the rebell-
ion, and at lfast three more held high civil station in the rebellion,
making in all eighty-eight out of ninety-three.

Let me state the same fact, dividing the Houses. There are but
four Senators here who fought in the Union Army. They all sit here
now ; aud there are but four. Twenty Senators sit here who fought
in the army of rebellion, and three more Senators sit here who held
high civil command in the confederacy.

In the House, there are fifty Union soldiers from twenty-seven
States, and sixty-five confederate soldiers from eleven States.

Who, I ask you, Senators, tried by this record, is keeping up party
divisions on the issues and hatreds of the war?

The South is solid. Throughout all its borders it has no seat here
save two in which a republican sits. The Senator from Mississippi
[Mr. Bruce] and the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Kellogg] are
still spared; and whisper says that an enterprise is afoot to deprive
one of these Senators of his seat. The South is emphatically solid.
Can you wonder if the North soon becomes solid too ? Do you not
see that the doings witnessed now in Congress fill the North with
alarm, and distrust of the patriotism and good faith of men from the
South ! Forty-two democrats have seats on this floor ; forty-three
if you add the honorable Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Davis.] He
does not belong to the democratic party, although 1 must say, after
reading his speech the other day, that a democrat who asks anything
snore of him is an insatiate monster. [Laughter.] If we count the
Senator from Illinois, there are forty-three democrats in this Cham-
ber. Twenty-three is a clear majority id' all, and twenty-three hap-
pens to l>e exac ly the number of .Senators from the South who were
leaders in t he lute rebellion.

Do yoQ anticipate my object in stating these numbers ? For fear
you do not, let me explain. Forty-two Senators rule the Senate:
twenty-three Senators rule the caucus. A majority rules the Senate;

;i ea inns rules the majority ; and the twenty- three son I hern Senators
rule the caucus. The same thing, in the same way, governed by the.
same (dements, is tine in the llcuise.

Thifl present assault upon t he put it v a nil fairness of elect ions, upon

the Constitution, upou the executive department, and upon the rights
of the people ; not the rights of a king, not on such rights as we heard
the distinguished presiding officer, who 1 am glad now to discover

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in his seat, dilate upon of a morning some weeks ago ; not the divine
right of kings but the inborn rights of the people — the present as-
sault upon them, could never have been inaugurated without the
action of the twenty-three southern Senators here, and the southern
Representatives thei-e, [pointing to the House.]

The people of the North know this and see it. They soe the lead
and control of the democratic party again where it was before the
war, in the hands of the South. " By their fruits ye shall know them."
The honorable Senator from Alabama [Mr. Morgan], educated no
doubt by experience in political appearances, and spectacular effects,
said the other day that he preferred the democrats from the North
should go first in this debate. I admired his sagacity. It was the
skill of an experienced tactician to deploy the northern levies as the
sappers and miners ; it was very becoming certainly. It was not
from cruelty, or to make them food for powder, that he set them in
the forefront of the battle ; he thought it would appear better for
the northern auxiliaries to go first and tunnel the citadel. Good,
excellent, as far as it went ; but it did not go very far in misleading
anybody ; putting the tail foremost and the head in the sand, only
displayed the species and habits of the bird. [Laughter.]

We heard the other day, that the " logic of events," had filled the
Southern seats here with men banded together by a common history
and a common purpose. The Senator who made that sage observation
perhaps builded better than he knew. The same logic of events, let me
tell democratic Senators, and the communities behind them, is des-
tined to bring from the North more united delegations.

I read in a newspaper that it was proposed the other day in another
place, to restore to the Arniy of the United States men who, educated
at the nation's cost and presented with the nation's sword, drew that
sword against the nation's life. In the pending bill is a provision for
the retirement of officers now in the Army, with advanced rank and
exaggerated pay. This may be harmless, it may be kind. One swallow-
proves not spring, but along with other things, suspicion will see in
it, an attempt to coax officers now in the Army to dismount, to empty
their Baddies, in order that 'others may get on.

So hue and cry is raised because courts on motion, for cause shown
in open court, have a right to purge juries in certain cases. No man
in all the South, under thirty-five years of age, can be affected by this
provision, because every such man was too young when the armies
of the rebellion were recruited, to be subject to the provision com-
plained of. As to the rest, the discretion is a wholesome one. But
even it it wen- not, let me say in all kindness to Southern Senators,
it was iini wise to make it a part of this proceeding, and raise this
uproar in regard to it.

Even the purpose, in part already executed, to remove the old and
faithful Officers Of the Senate, even (Jnion soldiers, that their places
may be snatched by others — to overturn an order of the Senate which
has existeil for a quarter of a century, iii order to grasp all the petty
places here, seems to me unwise. It is not wise, it you want to dis-
arm suspicion that von mean aggrandizing, gormandizing, unreason-
able things.

Viewing all these doings in the Light of party advantage — advan-
tage to the party to which 1 beloug, I COUld UOl deplore them; far
from it ; but wishing the repose of t he country, and t he real, lasting,
ultimate welfare of the South, anil wishing it from the bottom of my
heart, I believe they are flagrantly unwise, hurt fully injudicious,

What the South needs is to heal, build, mend, plant, sow. In short,

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to go to "work. Invite labor ; cherish it; do not drive it out. Quit pro-
scription, both for opinion's sake, and for color's sake. Reform it al-
together. I know there are difficulties in the way. I know there is
natural repugnance in the way ; but drop passion, drop sentiment
which signifies naught, and let the material prosperity and civiliza-
tion of your land advance. Do not give so much energy, so much
restless, sleepless activity, to an attempt so soon to get possession
once more, and dominate and rule the country. There is room enough
at the national board, and it is not needed, it is not decorous, plainly
speaking, that the South should be the Mac Gregor at the table, and
that the head of the table should be wherever he sits. For a good
many reasons, it is not worth while to insist upon it.

Mr. President, one of Rome's famous legends stands in these words:
" Let what each man thinks of the Republic be written on his brow."
I have spoken in the spirit of this injunction. Meaning offense to no
man, and. holding ill-will to no man, because he comes from the South,
or because he differs with me in political opinion, I have spoken
frankly, but with malice toward none.

This session, and the bill pending, are acts in a partisan and polit-
ical enterprise. This debate, begun after a caucus had defined and
clenched the position of every man in the majority, has not been
waged to convince anybody here. It has resounded to fire the dem-
ocratic heart, to sound a blast to the cohorts of party, to beat the
long-roll, and set the squadrons in the field. That is its object, as
plainly to be seen, as the ultimate object of the attempted overthrow
of laws.

Political speeches having been thus ordained, I have discussed
political themes, and with ill-will to no portion of the country but
good-will toward every portion of it, I have with candor spoken
somewhat of my thoughts of the duties and dangers of the hour.
[Applause on the floor and in the galleries.]